February 21, 2007

Hi All, Courtenay Rooks here again. This time I have a carnival Adventure, here are some photos I took this Carnival. The first is a section leader of a band, the a part of Exodus Steel Orchestra showing bass pans, locally we call it steel pan, not steel drums. Though steel drums is correct it will identify you as a foreigner. The Devil is one of our traditional characters, this guy is completely oiled out in a mixture of black paint and oil, they also do red. Often you find devils breathing fire and mixing with bats, of course there are devil bats. This is strakly contrasted by the girls in the bikinis, feathers and beads.

February 02, 2007

This time of year I am very busy with tours and one of my major joys of these tours is the sheer variety that Paria Springs offers. This means that I can spend a couple days birding, then kayaking, followed by hiking, mountain biking and so on. In the last couple of days I have kayaked in Blanchisseuse and to Gasparee Cave, by boat and car to Caroni Swamp where we were birding, more birding in Oropuche, Roussillac and Nariva Swamps, hiked Mon Bleu, Petty Marianne Waterfall and Tamana Cave and so much more. All enjoyed in the company of various ecotourists on tour with me. Here are some interesting tit bits along the way.

On Jan 29 I kayaked with Michael and Cindy Murray and Robert Coats, who is updating the Rough Guide to Trinidad and Tobago, to Gasparee Cave. On the hike to the cave Elwin, the CDA guide, mentioned that the island gets some large centipedes, the words had hardly come out his mouth when a foot long centipede started strolling across the path. I dropped everything (literally) and rushed over to photograph it. I got some great photos of it body and head but completely forgot to get close ups of the tail, ah well.

In the cave I practiced with the night time mode on my camera and got some great shots including one of Cindy Murray posing for me in front the cenote. Of course in night mode the camera takes about 20 seconds for each shot, so Cindy had to stay still but it does make the cave look brighter than it is brining out the color of the water.

Feb 1st I did a tour with two wonderful British (also somewhat Indian) ladies, Sue and Judith, to Plum Mitan for curry lunch then to Tamana Cave for the bats. We had a great morning at the Aripo Livestock station where we had wonderful views of Red breasted Blackbirds, Orange Fronted Yellow Finches and Savanna Hawks (I have a theory that the length of bird names are inversely proportionate to its size, the smallest birds get the longest names. On the way to Plum Mitan we stopped at Brigand Hill where we had fantastic views on Nariva swamp, we could also the Northern, Central and Southern Ranges, which is the length of Trinidad. Once from Mon Bleu I could see Grenada, Trinidad's north, east and west coasts, the Northern, Central and Southern Ranges, I just could not see the Serpents Mouth.

After a delicious "Bus-up-shot" we drove to Tamana, on the way we stopped at a flock of Yellow rumped Caciques that were nesting in a mango tree right next to the road. The females were still building nests while the males were doing battle for who would be the alpha male. So it was very noisy and active. It was a true joy to see, especially since their calls include rattles, hisses, melodious songs, pops and whistles, all while fluffing out their feathers and wiggling the tails and wings; really very hilarious.

We then headed to the trail head for the hike to the cave. Since it had been drying up a bit recently the trail was not too slippery. At the entrance of the cave I saw one of my favorite lizards, well really its a gecko called gonotodes ceciliae (it has no common name) and is very rare because it habitat it limited to cave entrances and other places near pitch darkness. The males (photographed) are such magnificent combination of red, brown, green, yellow and black, if I was a female gecko I would dig him. Enlarge the photo and look at the details. In the cave it was the usual electrifying blend of bats, their ever deepening shit, cockroaches, other flying and crawling things and a smell far superior to the effect of smelling salts. And the evenings end was the bats exiting the cave, always an exhilirating experience. In this photo I count 26 bats, see if I am worng.